Guinea pigs are professional beggars, and a kind sitter with a food sack is their easiest audience. The wheeking sounds starved, the sack is right there, and an extra scoop feels like generosity rather than overfeeding, especially across a week of twice-daily performances. Owners often respond with longer instruction letters, but precision in writing cannot compete with a sack and a scoop at feeding time. The fix is structural: decide every portion yourself, in advance, in your own kitchen, so the sitter's job becomes opening the right tub rather than judging the right amount.
Tubs Labeled So the Day Feeds Itself
Measure the portions in advance into labeled tubs, one per meal, and give every tub the same label set: which guinea pigs, which day, which meal, and the weighed amount. Identical labels matter because a sitter working through a stack at speed should never have to interpret; the tub for a given meal says everything on its face, and an empty shelf slot at the end of the day proves the meal happened. Weigh the dry food rather than scooping it, since scoops drift with whoever holds them, and seal each tub so yesterday's portion cannot quietly merge with today's. Prepare the fresh food the same way, washed and portioned by day, with a short note of what a portion looks like in ordinary terms, a palm-sized pile of leaves, two thumb-length pieces of pepper, so the sitter can sanity-check a tub against the description. Keep hay unlimited and unportioned, with a plain instruction that the rack is never left empty, because hay is the one food where more is the correct answer. Line the tubs up in day and meal order on one shelf, oldest at the front, and stack them nowhere near the pigs' everyday treats, because a tub system the sitter has to hunt for is a system that gets replaced by guesswork on the second busy morning. If your pigs eat measured vegetables twice a day, portion both meals rather than trusting the evening one to memory, and mark any tub that holds medication-day food or a supplement with a different colored lid, flagged in the written instructions, so nothing important depends on the sitter remembering a conversation.
Close Off the Extra Food
A perfect tub system fails if the sack stays open beside it. Store the main food supply closed, ideally in another room or a latched cupboard, and leave a note saying the tubs are the whole ration and the pigs will perform as if that were a lie. Write down what happens if a tub is dropped or a day is missed, which is to move on to the next labeled tub and tell you, never to double the next meal from the sack. Leave one spare emergency tub, clearly marked as such, at the end of the row, because a dropped tub at the evening visit otherwise forces exactly the sack improvisation the whole system exists to prevent, and finding the spare used tells you, honestly, that a portion was lost rather than doubled. Show the sitter the system once in person before you leave, tubs in a row, and confirm the sitter's instructions and the agreed terms in writing, including visit times, what to do if a pig seems unwell, and who can authorize a vet visit. Written terms turn a favor into a clear arrangement that protects the sitter as much as the pigs.
Access That Matches the Trip
The sitter also needs the surrounding details, vet number, your contact order, where the carrier lives, without inheriting your whole account. Alongside the tubs, Care Pass through KinsLe hands that same sitter the feeding routine on a time-limited basis, scoped to care notes only, with access ending the moment you return home.